Newest Members

Providing Education To Everyone(Non Profit Organisation)

Masters of converting coffee into customer satisfaction

Jim Wideman

Founder

St Louis, Missouri

I am the founder of this project. When I was young, my best friend died in a car accident in which I was driving. I survived this accident and my life changed after this. Now I'm doing something good with this new life given to me by God. When I came to India, I met Shiva and together we started this organisation.

My friend's name was Pete.

R.I.P PETE

KARMA YOGI SHIVA

CO-FOUNDER

In 2011, I found my teacher Avdhoot Baba Shivanand. I was frustrated and busy like anyone else, but my teacher showed me the way which I am walking now and learning to be a good person day by day, thus helping me burn my bad karma from my past life. I practice the Art of Dying and have a vision to open up a spiritual community of artists where all people can join us and share their knowledge, love and happiness, and a school for village children living in and around Rishikesh.

I put forward my expertise about travelling to fulfill the vision of PETE's school and community. By practising Karma Yoga I believe this is a small gift to my teacher for the way he showed me in this life.

LAXMI

COMMUNITY MANAGER

Laxmi is our community development manager and has around 10 years' experience working in the slums. She has worked with kindergarten children, vocational school students and primary school students and now will be leading womens' self-help groups in 2014. She along with her family lives in the slums.

Providing Education to Everyone (Non-Profit Organisation)

Mohini Katyal

Kindergarden Teacher

Mohini is a teacher at the Nirvan kindergarten. She has almost four years of experience working with childrens,She lives in the slums with her 2 sons and their wives and is a widow.

Manjeet Kaur

Nirvan Vocational School For Womans

Beauty Teacher

Manjeet is our teacher for vocational school (beauty section) for womans

Seema Katyal

Caretaker Nirvan Kindergarden And Pete production unit

Seema is born in slums in other part of delhi after marriage she moved to this slums as her husband born here.She is very hard working and have dreams for her newly married life.You r welcome to Team Pete.

Madhu, our teacher of the Nirvan School and a mother of three, is very hard-working and committed to her work of teaching the children living in the slums, where she also lives together with her family. She gets a salary from our organisation for teaching in the Nirvan School run by PETE which helps her to take care of her children and support her family.

Kusum Banjara - (nomadic tribe)

Born, raised and married in the slums, Kusumhad a passion to study from her childhood due to the demise of her father at an early age. She managed to go out of the slums every day which took her nearly one hour of walking to come and go from the school. She also has a passion for teaching, and as a former teacher in the Nirvan School run by PETE, she drew a salary to help her support her family.

Lata Devi Singhania

is a former teacher at the Nirvan vocational school for women. She has done a professional course in beauty skills and stitching, and lives in the slums with her family.

Mumtaz

Mumtaz comes from a Bihar community, which is one of the communities living in the Kathputli slums. She is a teacher at the Nirvan stitching school, where girls and women from age 14 to 40 years come to learn stitching and embroidery. Mumtaz holds a certificate from a government institute as a teacher to give the stitching and embroidery classes.

Vikas Singh

Vikas is the caretaker and volunteer coordinator at our rural mountain project, Nirvan Commune. He comes from the village where our Nirvan Commune Project is located.

Summary

One of the largest problems we face in our world today is ignorance. Uneducated people go through the motions of life doing the best that they know how to do. However, they are hindered by their lack of knowledge of the vast world around them. Many people head to work each day with the hope that they will earn enough money to eat for the day. Living hand-to-mouth is the only option for a large population of our fellow people. This option proves to be the only option for the entire lifespan of millions. A number of this social group will become victims of crime and are forced to make unthinkable decisions as a result of their circumstances. Most of the children living in poverty are forced down unimaginable roads of hardship. The vicious cycle of this plague of poverty needs to be eradicated.

Goal

The goal of Providing Education to Everyone (PETE), our non-profit organisation, is to establish a school system and teach children the basic principles of reading, writing and arithmetic. Students will be guided in the understanding that 'knowledge is power'. To teach a subject is to understand the subject, so 'make your knowledge contagious' will be an important virtue of the school. Upon successful completion of primary school training, students will receive assistance through guidance and scholarship in deciding what option is in their best interests for the next phase of their lives. Throughout the process, we will also provide clean water and basic nutrition for the students and neighboring communities. India will be our first destination.

One of the most important aspects of the entire program will be training educated individuals of the communities to teach their fellow citizens. Through observation during the school day and evening classes, we will train our appointed staff on how to be effective teachers. MYKC/PETE teacher academy will be available for the selected members of the community and will accept applications for enrolment. On-the-job training will be a paid position so expectations will be high.

Community members will play a vital role in our schools. Community members that have the desire to teach will have the option of applying to our teacher academy. Adults and students alike will share their knowledge and will work simultaneously to spread their knowledge to everyone. Community service projects will also be conducted in the area. The goal of sharing knowledge and offering time to others will benefit each community.

Vision

Our vision is to build a team of teachers that are completely passionate about spreading knowledge and understanding to every person and child in their presence. If we can build a strong team of teachers that love to share their ideas and are willing to start schools to spread the wealth of knowledge, then we have succeeded. To teach children the importance of knowledge and help find the passion for sharing their knowledge will be one of the most important aspects of the entire mission. "Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity", according to Socrates. Every person in the world will need to know how to be an effective teacher because an effective teacher makes an effective parent. The vision is to educate everyone to a higher level, and achieve a level of passion, appreciation, respect, determination, and eventually peace of mind for everyone.

Mission Statement

The mission of the PETE school system is to develop each student to be an independent thinker and life-long learner who will live as a messenger of knowledge and to make their knowledge contagious. 'Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences' -Plato

Location and Cooperation

Providing Education to Everyone will work in direct cooperation with Make Your Knowledge Contagious, an American based group that will help fund PETE.

In our efforts of this organisation, we will 'ensure effective delivery of quality education and drive entrepreneurship to break the vicious cycle of poverty in rural areas' and slum areas of India (ISF, 2006).

The absolute destination lies behind the doors of the future. The ultimate goal is to supply all of the children of the world the basic right of fresh water, basic nutrition, and high level education.

Competitive analysis

There are organisations that are currently offering education to the poor sectors of India. Most of the schools are privately funded and require that students pay tuition. Even in the poor sectors parents pull together enough money to send their students, despite what the family then goes without, because the importance of education is not taken for granted. Many of these schools are ineffective and face issues of teachers having such little regard for their work that they simply do not show up. According to the action research of ISF, 'The poor must develop social and entrepreneurial skills that require a complete mind shift about their own potential and self worth, especially in rural areas where the caste system is still prominent.'

Providing Education to Everyone, along with Make Your Knowledge Contagious, will offer rigorous education to children so that they may achieve complete peace of mind. However, "it is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well." (Descartes). The approach will be systematic and effective in each community. Community schools and their teacher leaders will be evaluated by a member of the education board on a weekly basis for the first two years of service. The teachers will be evaluated by the building principle weekly to ensure quality education. The building principles will be evaluated and trained by area supervisors that will oversee 5 buildings each. The area supervisors will meet with the PETE Board of Education weekly for the first year to ensure high quality education. After the first year, we will move to bi-monthly meetings. PETE will keep an eye on the prize of quality education for everyone, and the passion will linger within us all.

To say that there is competition from one school to the next defies the entire mission. This is a non-profit mission, not a conglomerate. Education for everyone is an attainable goal providing the proper resources such as human resources and financial support.

Strategy

The entire mission for Providing Education to Everyone, and Make Your Knowledge Contagious, will focus on areas of educational need. We will focus on slum areas and rural areas to establish our first buildings. The organisation will search for land that can be donated by private owners or government officials.

As we teach the students about the basics, we will also be in search of student-teachers. Student-teachers will be chosen by our staff to attend the school day as an assistant and also to work in the evening to learn key strategies of effective teaching. We will train the student-teacher until we feel he or she is ready to lead a classroom to success. The teacher leader will possess the facets of passion, rigor, patience and direction. All teachers will be held to strict guidelines. The main expectations of the teacher leader (also known as principal) will be to lead the teachers down the path of effective and passionate teaching, and to ensure that every teacher is following the rigorous expectations.

All students and teachers of the PETE/MYKC Foundation will continually learn about the importance of sharing their knowledge with others. The members of the organization will be expected to share their knowledge with the less fortunate.

Service to the Community

Besides going to school 6 days a week, the members of our school will be asked to help with community projects. The needs for each location will vary so the specifics of the community projects will be determined on site.

Each school building will not only contain the domain of education but also a kitchen to supply nutritional needs to students and the community. The PETE organisation will continually support the basic human needs prior to educating the community. The human mind cannot function properly if malnutrition is a concern.

Curriculum

The schools that are established by PETE/MYKC will follow the established curriculum of NCERT.

The Indian division of NCERT bases the educational process around personal experiences and societal needs. Students are treated with utmost respect because NCERT promotes human-to-human harmony as well as human-to-nature harmony. Students are taught the skills of language and math in a direct real life and manner. The mathematics education is based on fundamentals of arithmetic and leads up to algebra and geometry. The language curriculum is based heavily on non-fiction material such as community problems, human rights and conservation of resources. However, students also study works of fiction, prose and poetry. Students will provide evidence of knowledge acquisition via examinations every 4 weeks.

The expectations are high for students and teachers. Students are taught the values of dedication and knowledge. The curriculum promotes harmony, patience and rigorous examinations. However, examinations are most frequently tasks that the students need to accomplish such as role play of real-life situations. Examinations require the students to provide evidence of learning through problem solving and decision-making.

Creating the financial plan

For approximately $1 per day a child can receive basic nutrition and a high level English medium education.

Detailed financial records will be available online at our website:www.peteindia.org

this year in March.

Overseas volunteer opportunities

A great opportunity to positively impact the lives of these amazing children

Fundraising

VIDEO

Chiara briani-Italy-2012

I volunteered with Pete while traveling to India and assisted them with know how to open up the slum school,i interacted with the families living in the slum.

I stayed with the family in Delhi while volunteering which was also helpful in giving insight of how culture and local people day to day life.

I highly recommend to volunteer with Pete and would love to volunteer with them in the future.

Serena Tosi Italy-2012

I volunteered with Pete while
traveling to India and assisted them with know how to open up the slum
school,i interacted with the families living in the slum.

I stayed
with the family in Delhi while volunteering which was also helpful in
giving insight of how culture and local people day to day life.

I highly recommend to volunteer with Pete and would love to volunteer with them in the future.